Category: one little word

LIGHT : june
I’m continuing on the fairly positive path I started on at the end of April regarding my journey with the word “light.” I’ve pretty well recovered emotionally from a rough couple of months before that, and now I just have to keep the over-achiever in me at bay.

When I look at each area of life that I’ve been focusing on – spiritual, emotional, physical, relationships, and creative, I see that there are a lot of positive things happening in each one, but also progress to be made. Right now I’m choosing to focus on the positive.

This month was a writing-heavy one, kind of like a mid-year reflection. It was a helpful exercise.

I looked back at the action items I wrote down a couple of months ago, and I was pleased that I had made some progress. I was also pleased that they still resonate with me, even though I acknowledge that I won’t be accomplishing as much as I expected.

I really liked the last couple of questions in this exercise; they asked what one specific action I’d take this month to move forward, and also what three things I’d like to accomplish before the end of the year.

What I did this month was to choose a mantra from a Bible verse that I can recite to myself constantly to bring the focus back to my word. 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” And my new mantra is walk in the light as he is in the light.

The three things I want to accomplish by the end of the year are:
1. Have a solid workout routine involving strength, running, and yoga.
2. Actually clear guest room of items to be donated.
3. More prayer: alone and with the kids.
Here are the monthly reflection cards for May and June:

Halfway through the year and I still feel very connected to my word!
June 29, 2015
LIGHT : may

The month of May has been so good to me as far as feeling lighter. It started out rough, but once I decided to change my attitude, refocus my priorities, and let some things go, everything turned around. Maybe partially coincidence, but I’m going with it!

spiritual

Recently I’ve benefitted a lot spiritually from my revamped morning routine, which I will be sharing more about next week. I now rarely miss my morning Bible study/prayer time and that makes a big difference. I just finished Beth Moore’s study “Stepping Up” about the Psalms of ascent. I really enjoyed it, and now I’m wondering what my next study will be. I am always working on praying more continually throughout my day and noticing the presence of God.

physical

After not exercising for a couple of months, I ran a 5k with a friend last weekend and I was pleased that at least that distance is still easy for me (although we ran quite slowly). I have a plan in mind for my fitness: run twice a week, yoga once a week, and super-slow strength training once a week. Here’s what I need to do to put that into practice: get some good headphones to run with (otherwise I will just skip the treadmill when the weather isn’t nice, which is often), research how to do super-slow strength training on my own, and find a yoga class to attend or figure out how to make it work for me at home.

emotional

Wow, so much better in this area. As long as I am getting decent sleep, I feel good. Meredith’s tantrums have really reduced lately, so obviously that helps, and I just read Love & Logic which gave me a good framework for discipline. There is still some uncertainty at work but I’ve been cross training and so I feel useful. Mostly, cutting back on my personal projects and saying no to new projects has helped me feel so much more in control and able to give attention to the things that need it (like my family). And actually, I have still been able to be quite productive on my own projects as well! I’ve been reading more, and finishing things, and keeping up with the blog and Project Life and none of it feels like a burden.

My current biggest emotional stressors are finances and getting enough sleep. Liam has been sick a lot lately (we are home sick today) so he doesn’t sleep well, and the kittens also disturb my sleep.

relationships

Our little family is in a good place right now. I’ve felt very connected to David recently, although more date nights are always welcome, and I still look forward to the day when the kids sleep in their own beds and we have some time together every night without them. One thing I want to work on is getting back in touch with my out-of-town best friends. We used to email and call regularly, but I let that go when I was so stressed.

creative

My creative life is going strong, and like I said above, it has actually benefitted from reducing the number of projects on my list. I finished my 2014 December album, am cross stitching for fun, keeping up with Project Life via the app, and I even took a second knitting class.

This month in the One Little Word class we were challenged to create cards with “I am” statements. I skipped the artsy part of the challenge (which was to use paint and mixed media to create the base of the cards) and just used some neutral patterned paper for mine, because I’m going for simple.

Here are my statements:

I am letting go of internal pressures + expectations for my sanity’s sake.

I am reading, knitting, cross-stitching, + blogging in my downtime.

I am still finding my footing with this whole motherhood thing.

I am slowly fitting running back into my life.

I am a work in progress. God’s not through with me yet (thankfully).

I am wondering what my job will look like a year from now.

I am loving: our new kitties, audiobooks, Birkenstocks, an extra cup of coffee each day.

I am realizing just how much I can’t do anything on my own.

I am oh so grateful for the good days, for family nearby, and my marriage.

And now it’s almost June and summer! I can’t say that I’m too excited about the oppressive heat and humidity that comes with it, but I do like the long days and reduced traffic. :)

May 29, 2015
LIGHT : april (one little word update)

I don’t have a whole lot to report about my journey with my word for the year except that for most of April I was definitely not feeling light. It was a super hard month of parenting and I wasn’t feeling proud of the way I handled the stress.

However, having the word “light” in the back of my mind allowed me to make the decision toward the end of the month to let some things go and release a lot of the pressure I put on myself. I had to get back to the root of why I chose my word: “light” is how I want to feel on the inside. Sure, I would love to completely declutter our house so the space is lighter. I’d love to get back to a frequent exercise regimen so I’m literally lighter. But with all I have going on right now worrying about those things (and others) was just stressing me out so that I wasn’t able to cope with challenges in motherhood, which is a priority.

So far the shift in mentality has been incredibly helpful, but I’ll report back. :)

This month’s prompt was to capture our word through photography. I simply went back through my photos from the year and chose nine that represented an aspect of what “light” means to me. (Also, to get this done I tried printing my photos on cardstock and they came out really terrible. Old me would have trashed them and ordered new ones, but new me is saying they’re good enough.)

Top left: this is one of my favorite recent photos of me and Meredith. It was a happy day and I want to focus on the good times we have.

Top middle: I love being outside and seeing the beautiful skies, and attending Texas Style Conference was such a positive and uplifting experience for me.

Top right: Liam is at such an adorable age and I want to soak it all in.

Middle left: Updating the kids’ room with string lights made me happy.

Middle middle: This is a photo of me at TxSC where I was really feeling lighthearted.

Middle right: I started a fun little cross stitch project, and as long as I don’t pressure myself to finish in a certain amount of time, this is the kind of thing I want to be able to do and enjoy.

Bottom left: Running is so good for me! I need to do more of it.

Bottom middle: Eating real food contributes to lightness of body and mind.

Bottom right: Our new kittens are so playful. They are what I didn’t even know I needed. :)

I debated giving up on the One Little Word project when I was deciding what to let go in my life right now, but it has been helpful for me so far and even keeping up with the prompts hasn’t been hard. If any of them are too involved I’ll just modify it and make it simple. I’m still really connecting with the word “light” and look forward to seeing how it changes for me.

May 6, 2015
LIGHT : march

I’m going to break format this month for my one little word update. My primary reason for choosing the word “light” was because that’s how I want to feel on the inside. Overall I do feel that way in most areas, either making progress or doing well, but with parenting I feel like I’m going backwards. It’s been a huge struggle and I’ll probably write more about it in the days to come.

The prompt this month was all about making concrete plans and actionable steps toward multiple goals. When I thought about it, there were five areas that I wanted to make progress in that are separate from my monthly goals. I chose three actions to take for each of them, and here they are:

real food

1 / continue using frugal real food meal plans.

2 / don’t bring into the house what we shouldn’t eat.

3 / try baking bread.

declutter

1 / purge one area or room each month.

2 / actually take stuff to goodwill.

3 / do a “no buy” month.

fitness

1 / sign up for a race (at least a 5k) every three months.

2 / run twice per week.

3 / aim for 10,000 steps per day.

faith

1 / put a devotional book by the coffee stuff to read while it brews.

2 / begin bedtime prayers with the kids.

3 / choose one more way to volunteer.

parenting

1 / spend one-on-one time with Meredith most every day (even if just 15 minutes).

2 / go on adventures.

3 / pray for my kids and my parenting daily.

Here is what this month looked like in my album:

I printed out the handout on kraft paper and wrote on it using a white gel pen. This was completely inspired by Donya. The only other thing I did for the month was update my monthly reflection card and add a couple of filler cards.

These action items are year-long quests so right now I’m not too overwhelmed trying to fit them in.

April 6, 2015
LIGHT : february

Here is this month’s update with my relationship to one little word (light).

spiritual

I feel kind of weird discussing my spiritual “progress” or lack of, since it’s a matter of the heart. I know that my actions matter, but I am not necessarily judged by them. Anyway, in the future I might leave this section off of these monthly updates unless I really have thoughts. For now I just want to note that Scripture memory is harder than it seems, and I still believe it all comes down to prayer (which I am not very good at).

physical

what’s been going well : I am done with long-distance races for now, and I’m pretty happy about it. David and I had a talk about health that was encouraging, and I’m hoping it leads to positive changes for our whole family.

still weighing on me : I’m in a transition phase at the moment; going from training hard for a half marathon to more of a sustainable whole-body fitness routine. I’m still figuring out what that will look like for me, but right now I’m thinking of cardio 3x per week and strength training 3x per week. Not necessarily on the same days. Once I know what’s working for me I’ll devote a post to it.

emotional

what’s been going well : Private journaling has been really helpful with decreasing the noise and chaos I sometimes feel in my mind. Now that I’ve started making nagging tasks monthly goals, I find that it’s kind of addicting to check them off and I’ve already tackled some extra ones. Our schedule has calmed down a ton and I’ve had much more time to rest and be productive.

still weighing on me : Being productive also leads to me becoming inspired to do more and more, so my list of goals becomes longer and longer. I have to struggle to be okay with projects that are in progress. I’m still somewhat stressed about finances in a big picture way, and my work PTO is at an all-time low (as in I have none).

relationships

what’s been going well : David and I had two date nights this month! We’ve also had a bunch of fun family outings. And although it’s very difficult to know how to handle Meredith’s tantrums, we started some new tactics to deal and so far it’s at least helpful to have a plan.

still weighing on me : Having a spirited, strong-willed child means I have a lot of battles in my life. I battle with her over many things, but more importantly with myself. I battle to stay patient. I battle to be compassionate with her 3-year-old struggles. I battle to stay calm and keep the anger at bay. I battle to not feel guilty over how we discipline, why she isn’t compliant, what she eats, the fact that it’s my own daughter who seemingly brings out the worst in me. I hope that she also brings out the best in me, but I don’t know. This phase of parenthood is hard.

creative

what’s been going well : I’m slowly but surely getting caught up on projects! Having a plan and only working on one “extra” thing at a time is very helpful. (Right now it’s my Week in the Life album.) Knitting lessons are happening soon, and I’m pretty excited.

still weighing on me : Just wanting to do all the things at once! But really I’ve been in a good place with this.

In class this month we were prompted to create a vision board. I used to do projects like this back in high school and college! It was pretty fun to cut and paste things again. Here is what it looks like:

I made my board on an 18 x 24 canvas. For the scripted word “light” I got creative. I knew I wanted it on there as a title of sorts, but I don’t have a machine to do cut files. So I just printed the word out (font is Blackjack), cut it with precision scissors, traced it (mirror-image style) onto white cardstock, then cut again.

This was the only prompt in the class for February, so the album updates were minimal. I took a photo of the canvas and had it printed 8×10 to put it inside.

Then on the back I printed out this perfect word art that Ali Edwards shared on her site.

I just added a simple cork star.

Then there is this mini page which I am using to hold monthly reflection cards. I will add to this as the months go on and I may move these pages around.

That’s it for now! This is one of my favorite projects in a long time. :)

February 27, 2015